Attorney in landmark abortion case headlines Houston lecture on saving reproductive rights
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Title: Attorney in landmark abortion case headlines Houston lecture on saving reproductive rights
Originally reported on www.houstonchronicle.com by Evan MacDonald
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Attorney in landmark abortion case headlines Houston lecture on saving reproductive rights
Longtime reproductive rights attorney and advocate Kathryn Kolbert knew the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion, long before it happened.
But she hasn’t given up the fight she’s been at the forefront of throughout her career.
Kolbert played a key role in protecting abortion rights in 1992, when she argued Planned Parenthood v. Casey before the Supreme Court. The case reaffirmed the right to an abortion before fetal viability, though it allowed states to impose restrictions that did not place an “undue burden” on women.
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When President Donald Trump won the election in 2016, Kolbert expected she’d see Roe overturned, she said. The court shifted to a conservative majority under Trump, who appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all of whom joined the majority opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
She has been focused on protecting abortion rights in a post-Roe landscape long before the Dobbs decision was released on June 24. Last year, she and fellow attorney and advocate Julie F. Kay co-authored a book titled “Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom.” She also gave a TED Talk titled “The End of Roe v. Wade — and What Comes Next” a full six months before the Dobbs decision.
Kolbert will discuss the ongoing effort to protect abortion rights in the U.S. when she appears as a guest lecturer Oct. 1 at First Congregational Church of Houston. The event, titled “What We Can Do Now To Save Reproductive Freedom,” is the latest in the church’s annual Sylvia Richards Memorial Lectures Series.
The event will be held from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 1 at the church’s Meeting House at 10840 Beinhorn. In-person tickets are $30 and also include a reception in the church’s Assembly Room. Tickets to a livestream of the event are also available for $10.
In addition to her career as an attorney, Kolbert is a journalist; the co-founder of the Center for Reproductive Rights; a former CEO of progressive advocacy group People for the American Way; the founder of the Athena Center for Leadership at Barnard College at Columbia University; and co-founder and producing director of the Athena Film Festival.
Texas is among 15 states that have taken steps to ban or severely restrict abortions following the Dobbs decision, and experts believe others are likely to do the same. Indiana also had a near-total abortion ban in place before a judge blocked it from being enforced on Thursday.
Kolbert said Texas has been at the forefront of the movement to ban or severely restrict abortion. Last year the state legislature passed a so-called “heartbeat bill” that made it illegal for a physician to perform an abortion if they detected a fetal heartbeat, which usually begin around six weeks of pregnancy, and allowed private citizens to collect a $10,000 bounty against anyone who aids or abets the procedure. Another law banned access to abortion-inducing pills after the first seven weeks of pregnancy.
Texas is also among the states that passed a so-called “trigger law” that was set to take effect if Roe v. Wade was overturned. The law, which took effect 30 days after the Dobbs decision, criminalized all abortions unless the patient’s life is in jeopardy.
However, Kolbert said many Texas residents disagree with the state’s aggressive steps to ban abortion. Reproductive rights groups commissioned a recent poll that found 60 percent of Texas voters supported abortion being available in “all or most cases,” while just 11 percent support a total ban.
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“I think people in Texas really care about this issue. They’d like to see change. They’d like to see their ban overturned at some point,” Kolbert said. “What I’d like to do is not only inspire for this election, but to inspire a whole generation of activists to begin to dedicate their lives toward making change in this arena.”
Although Kolbert had been expecting Roe v. Wade would be overturned, the Dobbs decision came as a shock to many supporters of abortion rights. Most people, especially those who weren’t following the issue closely, never expected the Supreme Court to overturn a precedent that had been in place for nearly 50 years, she said.
“I think the public reasonably believed that the court was not going to turn willy-nilly on the individual views of its justices,” she said. “In this case, because the draft decision was leaked, there was an opportunity to see that this was coming. But again, I don’t think most people believed it to be the case until it actually happened.”
Supporters of abortion rights cannot rely on federal litigation to accomplish their goals, given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, Kolbert said. Instead, they need to focus on winning elections at the state level and in Congress, she said. And while Kolbert feels that returning to the standards of the Roe v. Wade ruling would be an “admirable goal,” she believes the long-term plan to protect abortion rights should include a constitutional amendment.
“Once you have power in a state, there are a number of pieces of legislation that can be adopted that are much more protective of reproductive rights, or [you could] at least eliminate the bans that have been implemented in many states,” she said.
Kolbert said she’s encouraged by the fact that polls have shown the Dobbs decision has motivated voters who support abortion rights – and particularly young voters – to turn out to vote in this year’s midterm election. But she always reminds people that winning political power is not easy: It’s not just about voting in November, she says; it’s about voting in every future local, state and federal election.
“I temper my optimism by reminding people that, no matter how optimistic I am, winning political power is hard to do,” she said. “And it takes the concerted efforts of millions of Americans to make that happen.”
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